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UP FRONTThursday 28 January 2016
US, China discuss North Korea, South China Sea Analysis: Student arrest renews
MATTHEW LEE Kerry said. strong new resolution on scrutiny for North Korean tours
CHRIS BODEEN Wang said China, which North Korea, but also to ac-
Associated Press is North Korea’s most im- celerate talks on what that ERIC TALMADGE
BEIJING (AP) — Top U.S. and portant ally, chief trading would entail. Associated Press
Chinese officials sparred partner and a key source “It’s good to agree on the TOKYO (AP) — An American university student’s arrest
Wednesday over how to of economic assistance, goal. in North Korea has rekindled questions about wheth-
deal with North Korea’s lat- agreed on the need for a But it’s not enough to agree er a small but steady trickle of U.S. tourists who go to
est nuclear weapons test new resolution. on the goal, we believe the country are unwittingly offering themselves up as
and ease tensions over ter- But he suggested that Bei- we need to agree on the valuable pawns in a political game with Pyongyang
ritorial disputes in the South jing would not support new meaningful steps neces- that can have serious repercussions for officials back
China Sea. penalties even though it sary to get to the achieve- in Washington who have to bail them out when things
U.S. Secretary of State John has condemned the test- ment of the goal to the ne- go wrong.
Kerry and Chinese Foreign ing. “Sanctions are not an gotiations that result in de- U.S. tourism to North Korea is legal and virtually all
Minister Wang Yi met for end in themselves,” he said. nuclearization,” Kerry said. Americans who make the journey return home without
more than four hours and “The new resolution should Wang also took umbrage incident.
But the detention of Otto Warmbier (WORM-bir), a
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, poses with Chinese President Xi Jinping prior to their meet- 21-year-old University of Virginia economics major who
ing at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Kerry is in China on the had chosen to spend his New Year’s vacation in North
final leg in his latest round-the-world diplomatic mission. Korea, comes at a particularly difficult, or opportune,
time, depending on how you choose to interpret it.
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool) Just days after he was arrested, North Korea conduct-
ed what it said was its first H-bomb test. As Warmbier
said their discussions were not provoke new tension at U.S. complaints that sits in detention, the United Nations Security Council
“constructive” and “can- in the situation, still less de- China is not doing as much is mulling a new round of what are expected to be
did.” But at a joint news stabilize the Korean Penin- as it can with the leverage heavy sanctions in response to that test.
conference, they present- sula,” Wang said. it has on North Korea. He According to Warmbier’s tour agent, Young Pioneer
ed sharply opposing posi- Later Wednesday, the U.S. noted that China’s posi- Tours, he was almost on his plane home when officials
tions on the two issues. ambassador to the United tion has been consistent pulled him aside, took him into a special room at the
Kerry acknowledged that Nations, in opposing North Korea’s Pyongyang airport and placed him under arrest for al-
“our differences will con- Samantha Power, told nuclear weapons program legedly committing an as-yet-undisclosed hostile act
tinue to test us.” Still, he reporters that countries and supporting a diplomat- against the state.
stressed that the world “need to accelerate prog- ic resolution to the matter. He is still under lock-and-key, possibly in the relative
benefits when the United ress” on negotiating a U.N. “For many years China comfort of the Yanggakdo, a tourist hotel where his
States and China are able resolution. has been working hard to group had stayed that has previously been used to
to work together, including Kerry noted that sanctions implement these,” he said. keep detainees until they are deported or more formal
on the Iran nuclear deal had brought Iran to the “We have delivered on our legal measures are taken. North Korea says he is under
and climate change. nuclear negotiating table. obligation.” investigation and acted with the “tacit connivance of
On North Korea, Kerry said “More significant and im- Kerry said China is North the U.S. government and under its manipulation.”
the United States wanted pactful sanctions were Korea’s main link to the That is an ominous detail for North Korea to offer.
new U.N. Security Council put in place against Iran, outside world, and that Initial announcements by North Korea rarely say much
action that would impose which did not have a nu- it could do more to limit about the actual crime, and linking it to the U.S. gov-
“significant new measures” clear weapon than against cross-border transactions ernment in their first statement to the world through
to punish Pyongyang for its North Korea, which does.” that benefit North Korean state-run media is highly uncommon. Though not
test this month and boost “All nations, particularly leader Kim Jong Un and his a tourist, one more American, missionary Kim Dong
pressure on the North to re- those who seek a global government. Chul, believed to be a naturalized citizen of Korean
turn to disarmament talks. leadership role, or have Kerry also called on China descent, is reportedly in North Korean custody along
“There’s been a lot of talk a global leadership role, to halt land reclamation with a Canadian-Korean missionary who is serving a
about North Korea through have a responsibility to and construction of air- life sentence. “We can’t comment on Mr. Warmbier’s
these past years. Now we deal with this threat,” he strips in disputed areas of case at this time as we don’t feel it would be in his in-
believe is the time for ac- said, referring to China. the South China Sea. Those terests, but every arrest that has occurred has, to our
tion that can bring North Kerry said the sides agreed steps have alarmed its knowledge, been with context,” Troy Collings, one of
Korea back to the table,” both on the need for a smaller neighbors.q the directors of Young Pioneer Tours, said in an email
Wednesday.
Without more information on the charges, it’s impos-
sible to gauge North Korea’s motives for throwing the
book at Warmbier or speculate about how difficult his
release might be. Despite the headlines and atten-
tion they garner, especially compared with problems
involving Chinese visitors, who are far more numerous
but rarely if ever jailed, actual arrests of U.S. tourists in
North Korea are extremely rare. And while North Ko-
rea might be lowering the bar for cases it chooses to
pursue, arrests are by no means random — virtually all
have come after violations of well-known North Korean
regulations on how tourists must conduct themselves.
But the real problems kick in over what happens next.
That’s when things tend to get political.
North Korea and the United States are still technically
at war and have no diplomatic relations. So gaining
an American’s freedom can and often does require
a senior U.S. official or well-known statesman to fly to
Pyongyang, hat in hand, to personally bail the detain-
ee out.q